


W is for Wings

by residentdogenthusiast



Series: A-Z Prompts for the Hamilsquad [8]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, M/M, i really don't know what to tag this, that's about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 00:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12664248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/residentdogenthusiast/pseuds/residentdogenthusiast
Summary: Gilbert loved the humans, why couldn't they love him back?





	W is for Wings

**Author's Note:**

> So, this AMAZING AU belongs to scrabblesense on Tumblr. They write some of the most amazing Hamilsquad depictions I’ve read, and they’re such a sweet person omg. Please, please, please go check them out you won’t be disappointed. I feel like I couldn’t nearly do their headcanons for angel!Laf justice, but I gave my best shot and made myself cry like twice so… enjoy?

**c. 1640**

Gilbert loved Earth—sometimes more than anything else in his life. Who in their right mind wouldn’t? The Father had said he would create a magnificent place for the humans to live happily for the rest of their days, and he had certainly not disappointed in any aspect. Of course, don’t get him wrong—he loved Heaven, too. It was his home. Heaven was where he and his people truly flourished, truly lived up to every aspect of their potential. But Earth felt far… cozier. Gil didn’t know why, but Earth just seemed far more welcoming than Heaven. Maybe it was the carefree atmosphere the place seeped with—in Heaven, there were far too many rules to abide by. Strict lanes to stay in, lines that couldn’t be crossed. A certain propriety was expected—the humans were barbarians and thus weren’t held to a certain standard, but angels were of The Father, and angels couldn’t act as raunchily as the humans did. There was no excuse for such behavior. On Earth… it was _different_. It was more free on Earth. He could really spread his wings and soar when he was on the soft, deep soil of the Earth.

And boy, did he adore everything about that gorgeous place. He loved the soft, plush, dew dropped grass that was a striking bright green—how it served as a comfortable cushion for his head when all he wanted was to sleep bathed in moonlight. Loved the skies, the vibrant rainbows of colors that painted them—all pinks and oranges and purples and blues. The animals that seemed to gravitate towards him—the deer, lapping from the lake he wiggled his toes in or the rabbits darting along and through their burrows. Or even the large grizzly bears that stood tall and proud, eyes keened towards the angel but not in a sense of attack. Oh, and the way the clouds welcomed him with open arms—the soft mist on his face as he playfully darted between them with his best friend, George.

He loved George, too. He loved George more than anything else in his life, too.

They were unmatched when it came to the other angels—no other could ever go toe-to-toe properly with either of the. But within each other, they found an equal. The other angels saw Gilbert as a child. A senseless child, not yet come into his own even despite the thousands of years he’d been around. Far too immature, too unruly to readily take his position by The Father. And they saw George as the opposite. A leader. Someone who’d matured, who was ready to take the steps necessary to true angelism.

But those things… those things didn’t matter when it was just the two of them. Gilbert wasn’t some petulant child, and George didn’t have to be the stuffy angel that answered regularly to The Father. They were just Gil and George. Best friends on bad days, lovers on good.

They soared through Earth’s skies together on the warm Summer afternoons, when the rain wouldn’t dampen their wings and weigh them down. Hand in hand most times, simply enjoying a good flight in the company of someone they cared so deeply for. Carefree smiles on their faces, a deep love in their eyes. On other days, they raced. George was far older than Gilbert, far more skilled and faster, but that wasn’t to say Gilbert didn’t give him quite the run for his money.

Gilbert _missed_ George. Missed those days.

He’d loved Earth. Had nurtured it, had fought for the humans The Father created—had sneakily pardoned most that didn’t deserve it. He loved humans. He loved their home. That’s what angels did, they loved every creation of The Father without question. Without hesitation.

So why didn’t the humans love him back in the same way?

He’d come home one day from an outing with George, smiling so hard his cheeks burned and trying to tame his mess of curls before he presented himself to his family, only to find a mean looking man waiting there. A cruel man that gave off an aura that made Gilbert fidget nervously, and a satisfied Michel waiting for him. If Gilbert had known… if he’d known the future that awaited him, the things that man would do to him… but he hadn’t. There had been signs that this was imminent danger, and a twisting in his gut that told him to run… but he’d remained like the sweet, obedient son that his father wanted him to be. After all, Michel was a cold angel but he was an angel, nonetheless. He would never hurt anyone… especially not his own spawn.

He’d been so _naive_. So trusting. Even in his father, even in the man that didn’t seem to be capable of the love that Gilbert himself was capable of.

 _“Gilbert, where have you been?”_ Michel had snapped, grabbing the younger angel roughly by his arm. Gilbert had flinched, but smiled warmly at the other man nonetheless. _“I have been waiting for you!”_

 _“I was with George, Papa,”_ he’d said sweetly, adopting the human French accent. His words lilted and twirled around the accent, an accent that strangely felt like home to him. Angels didn’t have nationalities and race, but humans did, and when around them Gilbert fell into the French tongue. It had been the one bestowed upon him when he first descended to Earth, the one that had naturally come to him. _“We were running an errand for the Father.”_

He lies. Of course he does. His Papa didn’t like the relationship George and Gilbert had together—called it distasteful, immoral. And he didn’t like to disappoint his father—he cared for the older angel, truly. He wanted Michel to be proud of him—afterall, he was the angels only son.

 _“Well, there’ll be no more of that after today. You’ll be going with this man,”_ Michel had said with triumph in his voice, gesturing to the man that had been watching the exchange with a fascination in his eyes. Later on down the line, Gilbert will revel in the irony that the man’s name was Alexander. _Alexander Nightline_.

_“Why?”_

_“Because I said so, and thou shalt obey their mother and father… or did you forget The Father’s word already? He is a good man, son, and I don’t want you to disappoint him, understood? You’re going to make the humans happy, and don’t you love them, so?”_ There had been a sick sweetness in his father’s voice as he spoke, a predatory smile on his lips. But Gilbert hadn’t recognized it as such then. He was so naive, so naive, so…

Gilbert had thought for a moment. He _did_ love the humans, and he did love making them happy. Especially the little human children that played by the lake where he and George bathed their feet. They helped pluck the itchy, uncomfortable feathers the two angels couldn’t reach and in exchange, he and George took them for flights. The human children loved that. And he loved hearing their squeals of both laughter and fright as they too could soar through the skies.

 _“I will come back, yes? I will return to the Heavens, and our home, and George? I will not be gone long?”_ asked a hesitant Gilbert, looking nervously to the cage on the back of the truck the man seemed to be driving. He had heard stories of angels being caught and pranced around as a sideshow attraction, suffering unimaginable tortures. Beaten, starved… raped. How angels had been killed in front of crowds, as the humans laughed and jeered. He knew they were mostly folklore to scare young angels such as himself into obedience, but he couldn’t help but feel nervous at the recollection.

_“Not at all. Just for a moment. To make the humans happy.”_

How that had been a lie. A cruel, manipulative lie.

Now, having just been sitting in the same cage he’d been carted away on, Gilbert can’t help but feel a bitter taste of betrayal on his tongue. He had _trusted_ these beings. He had known what they were capable of—he’d been alive for thousands of years, he wasn’t an idiot. Naive, innocent, but an idiot? Hardly. But he had never thought… he was _so nice_ to them. He worked so hard to make sure they had the best things The Father could offer, to make sure that they weren’t seen as lesser beings by fellow angels. He had fought for them, fought for their _happiness_. He didn’t think they would turn on him this way. Any of the other angels, sure. But never him.

But now, hands and feet shackled together as he’s forced on the Walk of Shame to the circus tent where he’d be forced to perform tricks like some sort of beast, Gilbert knows that humans would take advantage of anyone they could prey on. And so, it seems, would angels.

He thinks of Michel. Wonders if his father thinks of him, the only child he sold away to a life of torture and slavery for… for what? For popularity amongst their peers? Was Gilbert worth so little to his father… no. Not his father. Michel. Was he worth so little so Michel that he’d been sold for a childish popularity contest? How pathetic.

“Birdman!” someone from the crowd calls out, and Gilbert barely lifts his eyes to acknowledge him. It’s the voice of a teenage boy… he can tell at the way his voice cracks at how he raises his voice above the ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ that the humans waited for tickets were emanating. “Hey, Birdman! Can I have a picture!? Ma, make the Birdman look at me!”

When the browned, half-eaten apple lands against his temple, Gilbert’s first instinct is boiling rage. His wings lift just partially from his back, his teeth bared in an open mouthed snarl, his fist clenching in their shackles. This was only an example of what the sideshow attraction had made him into—some sort of feral animal that couldn’t be tamed. Had it been in another setting, Gilbert would’ve willingly handed over the attention the boy so desperately wanted. He _loved_ human children. The curious little things, all gentle hands and awed eyes.

But this human child… this was not the child he was accustomed to. And there were so many like him.

Gilbert lifts his head to glare at the teenager, takes a step forward. He could smite him down, if only he could manage to get his hands free. He could smite them all, make them regret doing such things to a soul such as his. He could show them just how fucking _powerful_ he was, just how much he was to be _feared_. But a sharp yelp of pain is dragged from his lips when there’s a splitting pain against his back in the space between his wings, and his thoughts are derailed immediately. The whip his trainer wielded had struck him in a spot it had struck before, leaving the slowly healing over flesh bright red and bleeding again.

“Down! Bad!” the trainer shouts, and tugs at the rope attached to his shackles. Gilbert hisses as they tug raw against his wrists and dig into the scabbing skin there, but falls back into line—the boy and his rage long forgotten.

And so, was another day as a freak at a freak show.

* * *

  **c. 1835**

His wings were ugly, and the sight of them brought angry tears to his eyes.

Gilbert looks at them now, in his dressing room—if an open cage with a vanity, a mirror and a bucket for bathroom necessities could be called a dressing room—mirror. It’s all he has to do to pass the time most days—count his scars, assess them, examine the new ones and think of the old ones. The times between shows were long and drawn out—most of the time, matinees didn’t sell so he spent his days with nothing to do but long for his freedom. It helps sometimes to think of the scars—provides a task, something to keep him sane when all he can hear are the tormented and agonized wails of his fellow captives calling out for mercy. He has to crane his neck to see the extent of the damage down to them, and even then not all of it is entirely visible.

And god… they were _so_ ugly. They used to be gorgeous, once upon a time, he muses sadly. Big, and shimmering. A bright pure white that only an angel could make look so innocuous. And full—every feather in their place, and itchy misplaced ones quickly plucked and rearranged. Gilbert distinctly remembers that George had loved his wings _so much_ . George’s had been more of a faded gray than pure white, so he’d loved the purity represented in most of Gilbert’s. Had once even told the younger angel that their future children would have the most beautiful wings around, simply because of Gilbert. Of course, that had been childish musings… but the compliment had been nice. Oh, and the _pampering_ . Gilbert gives a shuddering, sad sigh at the memory. The two of them used to spend _entire days_ preening each other, or cleaning each other’s wings after a romp about in the dirt. Properly, in a gentle way that only other angel’s could understand.  Nowadays, preening was such a luxury he wasn’t afforded—he only ever preened with the ‘groomers’ and they hardly did the job properly—that his wings were dingy and heavy with filth.

He’d rather that than have those incompetent buffoons further mutilate him.

One thing that Gilbert had been unable to understand about the Freak Show was it’s unnecessary cruelties. From the itchy, still blistering brand on the bottom of his foot that labelled him **_Property of Nightline Brother’s Travelling Carnival of Freaks, Mystery and Tricks_ ** —a completely uncalled for method of torture, considering there had never been any way for him to properly escape from this hell—to the abuse of his once glorious wings. He supposed to rule in fear was easier than to rule in respect, but how unfair it was to have his only true treasure he was granted in life defiled for their sick sadistic pleasure. Feathers of his had been plucked and sold as keepsakes or quills, and the skin beneath the absent feathers had be tweezed raw by meticulous ‘groomers’. So much so, that the feathers hadn’t grown back and had left patches of bright pink exposed flesh. Or even worse…

The private shows. The ones where’d they tie him down, face down, and allow the audience to take turns… Gilbert’s bottom lip wobbles at the memory of those. He can’t help the feeling of anxiety of dread that bubbles up in his stomach at the memory, the dizziness that comes after long sessions filled with blinding pain. Tears slip over his face at the memory of their laughter as he screamed, as he _pleaded_ for their mercy. _Please! No! I’ll do whatever you want, just stop hurting me! It hurts, please! Please, please, I’m sorry! It hurts!_

He didn’t know why the humans loved to hear him scream so. He didn’t know what he’d done for them to love to see him suffer so much. But he had learnt that the more he screamed, the more humiliating his pleas became, the faster those sessions were over. Survival of the fittest, George would bitterly call it.

Worst of all, was the long scars just along where his wings met the flesh of cocoa colored back. When he closes his eyes, he can still feel the blinding pain that came from _that_ night. The curious doctor with the curious eyes—curious not like children, but like a man set out on a lab experiment—, believing he could ‘cure’ Gilbert of his ‘ailment’. The way he’d frantically writhed on the cold steel table, screaming that his angelism wasn’t a _disease_ . That he wasn’t sick, he _was blessed by the Father, you ass_! The strong man's arms as they held him down, how easy it was to do so after so many months of starvation. And the cool steel of the long, sharp scalpel as it was dug deep into his skin.

The chorus of his screams that were said to have echoed for miles around as they tried to dig his soul from his flesh.

Gilbert gives a faint, proud smile at that one. They could take his freedom, they could take his dignity, but they’d never take who he was.

* * *

**c. 1890**

Fortunately, not all humans who came to the sideshow where Gilbert was pranced around like a prized ass were there for cruel, immoral reasons. With everything in the bad, came good—and the silver lining to this bad was the children. Gilbert knew children and children seemed to know him, even if they’d never been to the attraction he was featured in before. Unlike their adult counterparts, children didn’t revel in the pain and humiliation of the anomalies they were dragged along to see. They didn’t seek out the agony of those different from them for some sick self-validation. They were incapable of such things. As children tended to be of most things—quite a few of them were scared, and often cowered away from the physical anomalies their parents sought to tear down. But for the most part they were just curious. As humans tended to be.

Gilbert liked the human children. The teenagers had been tainted by their world, and the adults were cruel beings, but children had yet to develop these ideals. They were a naturally empathetic and kind species, which meant he got significant snacks slipped into his cage during private viewings for wealthy families.

His favorites, however, were the poor children. The children that ran away with the circus to help feed their starving families and spent most of their free time cleaning up after the attractions. The children that were just as much captive and abused by the Nightline brothers as the freaks were—treated like scum for poor pay while these men got fat off the backs of others. Those children… those were the ones he knew, if he could ever make it away from the freak show, he could promise a lifetime of peace in heaven. They were the good ones. They knew freak show’s were wrong, expressed guilt in participating in such a corrupt industry—but they needed to help feed their families somehow, and freakshows didn’t have child labor laws.

Yes, those ones that sat by his cage during their lunch breaks, telling him of the outside world and sharing bits of their lunch with him. Telling him of the truth about freak shows—why Gilbert was seeing less and less patrons, why the men that controlled him were slowly fading into obscurity—and gave him the hope for a better tomorrow. If these children, these children that so obviously managed to uphold the morals that Gilbert knew The Father had given humans… and if they continued to do so?

His mind floats the scars on his back, thinks of the possibility of those one day fading and becomes positively giddy with home.

He lets one, Billy, pet his feathers as Billy reads him a book. His small dark fingers smooth down the downy grey feathers towards the bottom of Gilbert’s wings as his soothing country accent recounts the details of the story. Something from Charles Darwin, observing his theories on evolution. Gilbert is just finally dozing off—the person in the cage next to him, someone they called a ‘pinhead’ had kept him up all night with her wailing night terrors—when Billy quietly says,

“One day, all o’ us will be equal, Mistah Gil. An’ then they won’ be able to keep none of us in no cage. Or in no segregation box, ya hear?”

Gilbert says nothing, just shifts closer to Billy’s touch and falls asleep with the idea in his head. It was a nice sentiment, but it didn’t seem as though it’d be happening anytime soon.

* * *

  **c. 1916**

“Mister Lafayette! Mister Lafayette! Guess what!? Nightline is shutting down! You’re gonna get to leave, Mister!”

Lafayette’s eyes lift to the small frame of Susanne, another one of those pretty little girls off to join the circus to feed her family, running towards him—frantically waving her long arms with excitement in her dark eyes. Immediately, his heart skips a beat at Susanne’s words and he leans forward in his cage—but he knows better to get too excited. It had happened before, and he wouldn’t be surprised if this time they recruited sweet little Susie in their little scheme. Set him free, no shackles. Make him think if he was fast enough, if he was smart enough, if he was strong enough… he could get away. He could escape a life of being some morbid idiot’s tall glass of curiosity. They’d let him taste freedom for just a second, just long enough to make him think that it was actually achievable. Then they’d shoot him down from the sky with a tranquilizer, sending him hurdling back to Earth—both metaphorically and realistically.

By now, he’d learned that it was all some sick, twisted game for them to play with him. He was their mental playground that they never got tired of visiting. Still, his fingers wrap and tighten around the steel bars of cage with just an inkling of hope. At least no one could ever say that he ever gave up easily.

His eyes widen when he notices that Susie is carrying a ring of keys as she darts through the various cages—which, Lafayette has paused to notice that are mostly empty save for the few animals that were in the circus act—in order to reach the angel’s. As soon as Susie comes to a stop in front of his cage, eyes twinkling with tears of both sadness and joy, Lafayette begins to doubt that this is some foul trick. However still, he keeps his guard up and his wits about him—he would be fooled and toyed with no longer. If they were going to keep him caged like animal, so be it, but they would no longer have the luxury of seeing him act like one.

She enters the key into the slot and pulls the cage open, staring at the angel with gentle eyes. She’s so young, Lafayette muses. Couldn’t be older than eleven, maybe twelve. And so sweet. Far too young to fathom pulling the cruel tricks his head is recalling, to even think of participating in them. He wonders if he leaves, what horrors of Earth would he be leaving her to?

(Leave it to an angel to always think of some human before himself, even after everything they’ve done to him. Child or not.)

“Well, you best get going. ‘Fore they change their mind,” she says—the last part with an air of joking, though to Gilbert that is no laughing matter—, after several missed beats of the two of them simply staring at each other in a mixture of shock, sadness and happiness. He hesitates, one foot lingering to be placed before the other as he looks to the bright, blue skies behind her. This feeling, this rush of _I’m finally free_ had come before and had been cruelly ripped from his fingers. Even though this was Susie—sweet little Susie that shared with him her lunch scraps and preened the itchy feathers on his back for him—could he really trust her?

The second he spread his wings and flew, would they shoot him down again? Would he be drug back to the camp in a hazy daze, hands shackled and feet bound again? Would they laugh in his face as he tried futilely to crawl away from their clutches, knowing that he was far too high to do much more than whimper?

Or could this really be the end to what had been beginning to feel like an eternity of suffering? 276 years was a long time to be spent in captivity, especially when he had been captured by a single bloodline of a man. Would he even know how to survive outside of that small, cramped cage? Would he know how to function as a proper angel in the Heavens?

Would the Heavens even receive him again, knowing the wretched, sinful things he’d done for mere survival?

So many questions swirl around in his head that, for a moment, Gilbert steps away from the potential  freedom into the comfort of captivity. Cowers against the back of his cage, shaking his head repeatedly like a man possessed. The cage, the show… they were horrific. Torture. He hated every moment he had spent or would potentially spent in them, and he longed for nothing else than to be away from them. But they were comfortable, a pattern. At least there, he knew what to expect. He knew what would happen every waking second of the day, had time to prepare for it.

Out there was the unknown, and the unknown was for more terrifying now than it had been 276 years ago.

“Oh c’mon now, Mister Lafayette,” Susie encourages gently, stepping into the cage to take him by his hand. Her small, delicate pale one laces with the fingers of his bigger, chocolate colored ones with a tenderness he hadn’t been used to experiencing. He flinches at first, cowers away from the gentle touch, but eventually relaxes. Susanne would never hurt him, wouldn’t even fathom it. She’d often times stopped the Nightline’s and their kin from hurting him. No, she was a kind girl. And she held no ill will towards him.

_That’s what you thought of your father, too, Gilbert. And the rest of the humans!_

**_Shut up, you foul beast!_ **

“You gots a life to live,” she continues, tugging him softly out of the cage. With carefully timed, leisurely steps, she guides him from the back of the cage to the entrance and together, they take Lafayette’s steps away from his cramped living space and out into the open. Gilbert’s eyes dart around frantically, his grip on her hand tightens—obviously very painfully, considering that Susie winces as they continue on. This was far too dangerous. _Surely, she was lying?_ **_No, she would never lie to me!_ ** _The other humans had, your father had!_ **_No, not Susie! Never Susie! I_ ** —

“Go,” Susie gives him a gentle shove once they’re safely out of the cage, turning and locking it back up just to make sure he didn’t try to return to his capture. He gives a small whimper of distress, suddenly the amount of open space too much for him. This was nothing like the cage, he could walk freely and run and fly—. “Go, Mister Lafayette. Go live! Be free!”

That’s all the further encouragement he needs to hear for him to gather himself properly. Sucking up his fears with the air through his teeth and deciding to try _just one last time_ for freedom, Lafayette’s wings open as wide as he can possible get them without too much of a painful strain and he launches himself into the air with a ferocity. Nervousness churns in his stomach as he races through the skies as fast as possible, wings flapping fiercely as he attempts to put as much distance between himself and the Circus as his wings could allow.

As soon as he’s high enough, and he believes he’s far away from the reach of the dart guns the Nightline’s used to hunt him for their sadistic games, Lafayette’s arms open wide with giddiness. Exhilarating, happy tears rush down his face as he laughs to himself. Lafayette soars between the fluffy white clouds, nothing visible for miles but the bright blue sky and the gorgeous green forests below. Oh, the way the clouds welcome him home with their open arms—the soft mist on his face as he darts between them with a determination that he had never felt before.

He had survived. He had _lived_ . He was alive, and he may not be well but that doesn’t matter right now because he has his life, and he would never, _never_ let someone take this freedom from him again.

_He’d rather die._

**Author's Note:**

> Several things to address:
> 
> 1\. At the end there, notice that I depict the part of Laf that wants to believe, to hope and be free as ‘Lafayette’ and the part that is afraid of the unknown, distrusting and institutionalized as Gilbert. In scrabblesense’s HCs, she noted that Laf doesn’t like to be addressed as Gilbert. I thought that would be a fun twist on the reason why.
> 
> 2\. The Nightline Brothers obviously did not survive for 276 years. The show was passed down through the men in the family--if there were no direct men, the men married into the family would take their wife’s name. Simply just to fuck with their captives.
> 
> 3\. Freak Shows gained popularity in 1640, but had almost entirely died out by the 1950s. I couldn’t put Laf through more than three hundred years of torture (and my muse for this fic was rapidly dying), so I decided to go with the timeline of when they really began losing popularity: The late teens of 1900s.


End file.
